Barracuda Networks is positioning this new integrated offering as an alternative to traditional appliance-based Web content security, which can be processor-intensive. According to the company, integrating these two products enables organizations to "use lightweight on-premises hardware for core network security functions and leverage the cloud for more resource intensive Web content security functions."

Steve Pao, vice president of product management for Barracuda Networks said that this approach enables them to "apply the most up-to-date security countermeasures against the latest threats, while minimizing the hardware footprint and upgrade cycles required to provide that protection."

Barracuda NG Firewall is a family network firewalls that are available as hardware and virtual appliances. The NG in the name stands for "next generation," which means the firewall goes beyond filtering traffic based solely on ports and protocols, as with a traditional firewall. NG firewalls can also filter traffic based on applications or types of traffic passing through those ports.